Sublime

Yet Herzl’s vision of a sovereign state had meaning, increasing numbers of Israelis believed, only if those new Jews rooted themselves and their humanity in the tradition they had inherited. Herzl without Ahad Ha’am was merely political sovereignty—and that, Israelis began to sense, was simply not enough. Theodor Herzl. Ahad Ha’am. Two radically di

These veteran men and women waiting for their early retirement offers from the L.A. Times, so they could take their pension, then go blog or write a novel, become the next Michael Connelly.

hope, the belief that present circumstances can be overturned, that they need not—that they must not—have the final word.

Abraham ibn Daud.

his native Lithuanian shtetl, Ponievezh, was among the many Jewish towns forcibly evacuated during the First World War, catapulting him and hundreds of thousands of other Jewish refugees into modernity.

And when the young men and women of Harod stand up and clap and cheer, the Vilna boy, who cannot start playing until they quiet down, is truly touched. Although he is a cold, perfectionist performer, he is overwhelmed. And between the young man standing on the improvised stage and the young masses standing in the improvised amphitheater, there is s

A Chinese man in the congregation springs to his feet, whipping out a shofar, a ram’s horn. In a synagogue, a rabbi solemnly blows the shofar on holy occasions, producing a few mournful bleats. This Chinese man is somehow blasting out ‘Hava Nagila’ like he’s Charlie Parker.